How To Put On A Mutacious Social Media Workshop in Two Weeks

1.    Get some folks on board. Nothing great is ever accomplished with out the help and support of other people.  Reach out to your network.  When I first thought to put on my social media workshop at Northeastern, I approached a woman I knew in Career Services, as I thought this would be an appropriate outlet.  Nancy ate up the idea.  We took it to the director, and we go the green light.
2.  Organize it with your audience in mind. My audience was college students (and some grad students and faculty showed up too).  The key?  INTERACTIVE APPROACH.  No one (especially college students) want to sit through a 90 minute presentation of me blabbing and a white and black PowerPoint with too many words on it behind me.  So what did I do?  I blabbed in style.  Meaning, I was lively.  Humorous.  Energetic.   I let the kids use their computers.  I Skyped in Lewis.   I kept it offbeat.
3.    Make people need to come. Not want to come – need to come.  These kids need jobs, so they best show up and learn how to get one by using social media.  I wasn’t putting on a workshop about how to get a better job – that’s something people want.  I put on a workshop for people that needed a job.
4.  Promote the heck out it. Facebook event, begging friends to plug it in their classes/student groups, spamming faculty and staff emails, guerilla marketing using my school’s course management system, Twitter.
5.    Show some appreciation. The value of a workshop is not necessarily what happens inside the workshop.  It’s what happens once your audience leaves.  You don’t want to waste anyone’s time, so make sure that after 90 minutes, they walk out of the room and will do something, change something, or pass on the knowledge they gained.  And finally, it wasn’t me who made the event a success.  It was the people who showed up.  So again, thanks to all you Northeastern ROCKSTARS for showing up last week and being so open to learning.  You will go far.

Judgement time: How was this list post?  Good?  Bad?  Ugly?  Remember, honesty and me are like this [make that finger gesture where one goes over the other].

If you missed the event, a little recap is here: